The Brothers Sun (Netflix)
Criminal Record (Apple TV+)
Break Point (Netflix)
I Am Andrew Tate (Channel 4) | channel4.com
Any show that opens to the sounds of Miss Rhythm herself, Ruth Brown, while a handsome man mixes a cake in a modernist apartment, has promise. Especially when, moments later, a murder occurs while The Great British Bake Off plays on the telly in the background. I’ve never before witnessed a man bludgeoned to death accompanied by commentary from Sandi Toksvig.
The Brothers Sun, Netflix’s new black comedy-action mashup, co-created by newcomer Byron Wu and Ryan Murphy collaborator Brad Falchuk, stars Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Michelle Yeoh as the immigrant Angeleno mum to bumbling, wet-behind-the-ears medical student Bruce (Sam Song Li). Bruce has a secret passion for improv and a side hustle as a Lyft driver. So far, so very lower middle-class LA.
But all is not as it seems. This becomes clear when our handsome baker slash merciless killer Charles Sun (Justin Chien) leaves his swanky apartment in Taipei, catches a flight to the US and introduces himself to Bruce, in dramatic fashion, as his elder brother. For Charles is the son of a Taiwanese Triad kingpin, ensconced in the life of crime Yeoh’s Eileen left behind and sheltered her youngest son from. Which was all going fine, except now her estranged husband has been the target of an assassination attempt, and it’s Charles’s mission to find the perpetrator – and safeguard the remaining members of his family. Phew.
The premise of people going about their unremarkable lives only to be disturbed by their murky pasts isn’t an original one (nor is the reality of a matriarch with a complex identity her kids seem oblivious to), but how many fight sequences involve a pineapple and a rolling pin as weapons? Or in a later episode, golf balls as missiles?
The pace zips along, the laughs keep coming (“When did you have pizza?” an inebriated passenger asks her friend, shortly after she’s puked in Bruce’s car) and there is some nice characterisation, particularly on the American immigrant experience. Whether the writers have successfully subverted the cultural Asian stereotypes of geeky scholar, action hero and Amy Chua-esque Tiger Mother, or relied too heavily upon them as starting points, is up for debate. Yeoh, whose career at 61 is thriving, puts her martial arts background to good use. There are eight episodes, and while there’s a risk that the unrelenting, full-throttle energy might veer the whole thing off the road before the series ends, the opening episodes suggest a fun ride.
In further scenes of a dark past making a comeback, Apple TV+’s new prestige drama Criminal Record (a UK co-production from STV Studios and Tod Productions, written by Paul Rutman), kicks off with an anonymous tip-off about a brutal murder committed a decade ago. The caller won’t give her name, but she says her violent boyfriend has confessed to the crime. Meanwhile, an innocent man is serving a 24-year sentence. Or is he? A hoax on the caller’s part? Or incompetence – or worse – from the police?
There’s everything you’d want from a contemporary London-set thriller here: Peter Capaldi’s brooding senior detective, Daniel Hegarty, furtively exchanging bundles of cash with strangers; Cush Jumbo as CID rookie June Lenker, intrepidly trying to find out what Hegarty is hiding and outmanoeuvring an opaque and shady Met hierarchy; and, for a refreshing change, none of the characters live in properties they couldn’t afford.
Poor June also has to deal with her white psychologist husband trying to explain racism to her on top of everything else. Capaldi and Jumbo excel – because when don’t they? – and there’s support from Stephen Campbell Moore and Zoë Wanamaker. A special mention for Aysha Kala, who plays a snowed-under mid-tier lawyer with a delightful dry wit.
Well directed and shot with plenty of night-time city lights bokeh, Criminal Record is perfectly paced over its hour-long instalments, and hits the right notes when it comes to issues of modern Britain (generational conflict; institutional failures; loneliness). I must dock a point, however, for my television bugbear: characters drinking from identifiably empty mugs.
Fair play to Break Point, the tennis documentary that serves up its second season with an episode dedicated to the so-called curse the inaugural show cast upon its protagonists, as numerous players were knocked out in the early rounds of last year’s Australian Open (or were injured beforehand) in a manner Agatha Christie would have appreciated.
It was certainly an unexpected plot twist, and makes for a surprisingly amusing series two opener with horror-shlock touches of eerie soundtracking and ominous whispers picked up on hot mics as each star comes a cropper. Last time out, the show, which aimed to follow in the footsteps of the Formula One inside-look Drive to Survive, was an uneven affair: gorgeously shot but hindered by an excruciating tone that patronised viewers less versed in the sport in a way that, say, the streaming platform’s Tour de France: Unchained series did not.
The recent exploits of teen darts sensation Luke Littler prove there is an untapped audience in the UK for sports that aren’t football, as long as the stories and personalities are compelling enough, and Break Point’s second series has the advantage of two wonderful young gun storylines of its own: the (spoiler alert!) grand slam triumphs of Carlos Alcaraz (Wimbledon) and Coco Gauff (US Open).
How it deals with Alexander Zverev, a top player undergoing a domestic violence investigation, is a stark failure, however. And I still think its episode running time is about 15 minutes too long; nobody needs that many gym scenes of a medicine ball being thrown.
One of the most embarrassing things (there are many) about Tik Tok’s favourite misogynist Andrew Tate is how he extols his cool and glamorous lifestyle when the dude lives in a Romanian suburb. Romania is a beautiful country, sure, but… it’s not exactly a multimillion dollar penthouse in New York, is it? Tate is not living it up in five-star hotels in the Hollywood Hills and dining in Michelin-starred restaurants. He’s rattling around in a kimono on an industrial estate.
Tate is also ostensibly a style icon, except he wears ill-fitting blazers and the kind of two-tone shades you have to buy in an emergency at a resort shop. Roman Roy would have a field day ripping into this guy. But given Tate’s social media popularity among a substantial cohort of mostly young men, some clearly view this life of essentially being a webcam guy as aspirational.
Channel 4’s new documentary I Am Andrew Tate, from Dan Reed (of the Michael Jackson exposé Finding Neverland), doesn’t do enough to get to grips with how toxic masculinity – the current term for age-old misogyny and patriarchal peer pressure – has evolved into its present iteration.
It also lacks direct access to Tate himself, which is no fault of the film-makers, but rather because Tate and his equally odious brother got arrested for sex trafficking before the cameras started rolling. This does save us from more of the yelling that passes for Tate’s normal speaking voice, which we suffer through plenty of archive clips.
Unfortunately, Tate’s brainwashing of a section of society and his nefarious effects on the women in his life – two of his alleged victims give brave testimony – mean we can’t just ignore him, but what a wonderful world that would be.
Star ratings (out of five)
The Brothers Sun ★★★
Criminal Record ★★★★
Break Point ★★★
I Am Andrew Tate ★★
What else I’m watching
Julia
(Sky Atlantic/Now)
Sarah Lancashire? Isabella Rossellini? Cream cakes? Bright red lipstick? Funky 1960s decor? This second outing for the Julia Child-inspired drama has it all, as Julia (Lancashire) struggles with her growing celebrity.
Tell Me Lies
(BBC One)
An erotic US thriller import, except I can’t find much erotic or thrilling in yet another show that focuses on wealthy upstate New Yorkers trying to fit in on campus: drinking alcohol and having sex. Shocking!
Mr Bates vs the Post Office
(ITV)
Last week, the Observer praised this dramatisation of one of the most scandalous miscarriages of justice in British history. The issue has dominated British politics since it aired. If you haven’t watched this yet, it’s in “most popular” on ITVX catch-up, and for good reason.
